J. Coughlan & Sons Shipyard at False Creek, 1918
Launch of the War Camp, March, 1918
J. Coughlan & Sons Shipyard, located at False Creek, Vancouver, was at one time during WW1 the largest shipyard in the British Empire. Britain turned to Canadian shipyards in early 1917 to help replace the terrible losses inflicted on the British Mercantile Navy by German U-Boats. There were enormous challenges. Only six large shipyards existed in Canada, most of them were working at low capacity. Much of the steel for ships came from the United States, and labour shortages and strikes affected production. Despite these constraints, Canadian shipyards eventually produced 41 steel cargo ships of which 21 were built by Coughlan.
Originally a steel fabrication firm, Coughlan had acquired enough real estate to set up their shipyard at False Creek and soon became the biggest in the province. The firm specialized in quick production techniques, a radically new form of building ships that was made necessary by the demand for as many ships as possible to convey food and war materiel to Britain.
Ship hulls were assembled as quickly as possible while orders for common engines and other necessary machinery were arriving from other distant plants. These were then installed as required according to definitive progress schedules. The fastest completed ship hull, christened War Noble, was launched in a record sixty-three days of working time.
Early stages of a ship's construction
Two ships under construction at the same time. One with scaffolding is in advanced production; On the extreme right where there's no scaffolding, work has begun on the hull of the second.
Paragraphs in italics have been taken primarily from Marsden's 2012 publication.
The armistice ending the First World War removed the rationale for emergency shipping, although the wave of steel shipbuilding in British Columbia continued unabated for a while. This was because Government intervention artificially kept Canada‘s west coast shipyards more or less near capacity into the immediate postwar period. The prospect of closing down the large wartime industry overnight was daunting. Thousands of industrial workers at Coughlan‘s shipyard went out on strike protesting wages and signs of slackening business, an action that resulted in the appointment of a government royal commission to examine the demands being made. Company owners and government authorities feared the spread of industrial radicalism to other shipyards and to related manufacturing industries province-wide, thereby upsetting the delicate social balance then in the province.
However, in spite of government intervention, there was no escaping the fact that there wasn't sufficient new demand to keep the province's ship builders busy. Some new ships were needed because demand for BC's commodities was rebounding with the resumption of peace time trade. However, a glut of war emergency hulls available for purchase generally kept prices depressed, and shipbuilders occasionally underbid simply to keep the business. In this context, Canada‘s federal government decided to establish a publically owned merchant fleet, named the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, and gave preference to domestic shipbuilders for the construction of steel cargo-carrying vessels. The strategy served a threefold purpose: employment eased back to normal levels by staggered work; business and industrial leaders cheered the economic development and potential; and, greater participation in shipping routes and international trade serving Canada challenged the stranglehold of foreign companies. During the short postwar boom, shipyards in British Columbia delivered newer steel cargo ships built to modern standards into a fleeting market with considerable government encouragement.
Some of J. Coughlan's workers, 1918
Shift change
The beneficiaries of this bold policy were the larger operating shipyards in British Columbia like Coughlan. Because of local entreaties to spread the business around, additional government contracts went to other companies not primarily involved in the wartime shipbuilding effort. However, the Canadian Government's Merchant Marine found it difficult to profitably employ the ships already on hand. An economic downturn and tightening markets against stiff foreign competition undermined the whole business model. Canada‘s government-owned merchant marine suffered mounting losses year after year and shrank by selling off ships at a fraction of their original cost of construction.
To the companies and business leaders themselves, the outlook for shipbuilding on Canada‘s west coast turned discouraging with the cessation of merchant marine contracts. Of more than three dozen large and small shipyards running in early 1918, fewer than ten remained three years later. Temporary wartime shipbuilders affiliated with lumber companies were the first to close down as interest in larger wood ships declined. Selected shipyards in Prince Rupert, Victoria, and Vancouver finished the last Canadian Government Merchant Marine steel cargo ships, but received no further follow-on orders because the government needed no more ships. When fire suddenly gutted the buildings at Coughlan‘s False Creek site, the company‘s directors voted against rebuilding the shipyard because of the dim prospects and wound down the business division in favor of other strategic directions after a somewhat disappointing foray into shipping.
Now, before your return to your regularly scheduled biography, let me address the two burning questions that I posed re. Harry's 15 month employment with Coughlan.
- What did he do for them?
- How did he get the job?
To question #1, I must plead ignorance. I have no memory of anyone in the family ever mentioning that Harry had worked for a ship building company. It would be nice to think of him doing something along the engineering line, but when you're coming back from Scotland, and you need a job, it's possible that he'd take anything that provided a decent wage, and Coughlan & Sons did that.
As to how he got the job, I can give you a possibility. First, consider the difficulty of finding a job in Canada when you're living in Scotland. Perhaps, some time after Miriam's pregnancy was confirmed in spring 1918, Harry may have decided that he had to return to Vancouver but wanted to have a job waiting for him there. How could he get such a job? Mail packets to Canada would have been reduced because of wartime. Telegraph communication would have been possible. Perhaps Harry first tried to contact the Municipality of South Vancouver to see if he could get a job. Perhaps that kind of advance communication was not possible or attempted. Perhaps he simply returned to Canada with a letter of recommendation from his Scottish employer and then just started looking for work. But one might skeptically ask how any such letter of recommendation could have helped him get a job in a ship building company that had really only been in the ship building business since 1917 and wouldn't have wanted any of Harry's previous work experience.
Ah, but you need some background information before such skepticism can be rewarded. Canadian ship builders were building cargo vessels for the Imperial Munitions Board, a Canadian agency established by the British War Cabinet to alleviate the shell crisis of 1915. The Board answered only to the British government, and was mandated to sign contracts on behalf of the British Government for the manufacture of war materiel in Canada. It began by establishing national munitions factories, staffed primarily with women, and over the course of the war, Canada manufactured almost 1/3 of Britain's shells. The IMB also contracted for the production of other war materiel including airplanes and ships. The cargo ships that J. Coughlan's shipyards were building were paid for by the IMB. Interestingly, the British agency that was in charge of the Canadian Imperial Munitions Board and was indirectly funding Coughlan's shipyard was the British Ministry of Munitions. Hmmmm. I've heard of them before. But where? Oh yeah. Weren't they the British ministry that hired government shell inspectors and placed them in various Scottish munitions factories to check on quality control? Probably, just a coincidence.
Sources
Technology Adoption and Adaptation in Canada‘s West Coast Shipyards, 1918-1950, by Chris Madsen, 2012. http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHonline/2012/madsen.pdf
Various websites, including
J. Coughlan shipyards: http://www.sfu.ca/geog351fall03/groups-webpages/gp9/sfchtstop9.html
Vancouver Archives: http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/j-coughlan-sons-ship-yards-vancouver-b-c-may-9-1918;rad
Canadian War Museum: Canada's Naval History: http://www.warmuseum.ca
Canada and the First World War: http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/guerre/finance-prod-e.aspx
Canadian War Museum: Objects and Photographs: http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/exhibitions/navy/
Imperial Munitions Board: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Munitions_Board
Imperial Munitions Board: The Canadian Encyclopedia: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/imperial-munitions-board